Piano Lessons

[peternap]

I was going to make a smart a$$ post on HG's fiddle thread, about how my neighbors paid us to make me stop playing the piano. They didn't even though they should have.

That brought back memories that kind of spoiled the joy in it though...so I thought I'd ramble on in a new thread.

I guess because I'm getting old, I can remember things that happen 50 couple years ago, like they were yesterday, but can't remember where my glasses are.

I started taking piano lessons (at my mothers insistence) when I was about 8.
In those days, kids could walk just about anywhere they needed to go and be safe...anyway, my mother sent me to Mrs. Fury's house for my first lesson. It was a half mile or so....well, I couldn't remember which house it was and I was almost late.

Wayne Stoutamyre lived near there and was about 3 years older than I and saw me going from house to house. He stopped me and showed me which house it was. That was the first time I met him.

Wayne was a big kid (tall and fat) and kids being what they were, called him Statfat. All through grade school and high school, I never heard him say anything cutting to anyone. Like most of us, he was a little wild and loved building street racers. (Muscle car days) He was a Ford man. He was arrested when he was 17 for buying a set of tires that turned out being stolen. Dad was the only lawyer around and defended him for free because he had no idea they were stolen. He won the case.

Like most small towns, the Volunteer Fire Department was the social hub of the younger set and Wayne was very active in it. After Graduation from high school, Wayne applied for the town Police position and got it. Turned out he was a damn good cop. Most of the rest of us went to college got degrees and came back. About that time, Wayne had met a girl at the local college and they had decided to get married after she graduated that year.

That was also the time I met my wife to be, took a job with the state and was getting ready to move to the Flatlands.

One night Wayne arrested a fellow named Pope for DUI. Wayne had let him off twice before and just told him to stay out of town when he was drinking. Pope was one of the hill people you didn't want anything to do with. There were groups that were the Deliverance type family's that had some inbreeding and they were plain nasty people.

One night while at the fire station BS'ing, Wayne's mother called and said Pope had been there looking for him and she didn't think he left. Wayne was off duty and didn't carry a gun while not working... he drove over there. He got out of the car, walked to the house and Pope stood up from behind the bushes and shot him in the head with a 12Ga...at a couple feet.

Small town, huge funeral and Dawn (His future wife) Sent thank you notes to close friends on their wedding invitations.

I haven't really thought about Wayne for years and this doesn't have much to do with PIANO LESSONS......but it's one of those nights!

[ScottA]

The little town near here is like that. The police usualy won't arrest a local because they fear retaliation. Those that have tried didn't last long before being fired or quitting the police force. Not much of a force really with only 2 officers and a dispatcher/jailer. They did have a list of the usual suspects and those where the ones who did get arrested over and over. They tried having a building inspector for several years but gave up several quit. Now the water department guy is the part time inspector and mostly everything passes. Gotta love small towns.

[Sassy]

Sounds kinda like our little town - but there's at least 100 cops - one for every 17 people 

Peter,  you reminded me of my piano lessons - not such a sad story, but got my memory going - my teacher was probably close to a mile away, so I'd ride my bike - as kids we rode our bikes or walked everywhere - parents didn't drive us anywhere...  my teacher only had one leg (just incidental info that doesn't have anything to do with the story - she also had lots of aquariums & a big pet turtle in the back yard & would break 1/2 way through the lesson & give us a glass of koolaid & our choice of candy bar- my favorite part of the lesson    )

Anyway, when I got to high school, I'd call my teacher & tell her that I was sick & go over to a friend's house after school.  One day she saw my mom at the store & asked how I was doing since I'd been sick so much lately...  got caught big time! 

[Redoverfarm]

Peter I was never into music other than what I could play on the radio.  Maybe my son will make up for my short comings.  But in the area of small towns they are here by the thousands.  As for officers injuried or killed senselessly I can think of a dozen off the top of my head throughout my career.  You can cuss them, make fun of them but who else would do a thankless job with their only desire was to "protect and serve" .  It certainly isn't the money, long shifts, but there is really a desire to help.  Although there are bad apples in every basket of life there are more good ones than bad.  So my hats off to the ones that try and shame on the ones that make them die.

[Homegrown Tomatoes]

Sassy,  tsk, tsk, tsk.  I got in trouble with my piano lessons too.  We didn't have money for real piano lessons.  So, mom sent me to her sister's house and she was going to give me lessons.  Her son (my younger cousin and best friend) was taking "real" piano lessons from someone else because my aunt didn't have the patience to teach her own son.  We were in the same book, but he was at the end and I was at the beginning.  I'd taken a month or two worth of lessons and Greg was at the end of the same book.  Since we didn't have a piano at home, I had to practice at their house.  Well, thing was that I was lazy about learning to read music, but I could play whatever I could hear.  Greg was practicing one day and kept tripping over one part.  So... helpful soul that i am... I sat down at the piano and said, "Here, it should sound like this..." From the office where my aunt ran the local newspaper back then, I heard her say, "Son, that sounds a lot better."  She came out to pat him on the back, only it was me, and she knew good and well I wasn't reading the music, so she chewed me up one side and down the other because I was playing  by ear and then told my mom that she couldn't give me lessons anymore because I was "too exasperating".  That was the end of my piano career.  I did play slide trombone from fifth grade until my junior year in college, though.   

[peternap]

Peter I was never into music other than what I could play on the radio.  Maybe my son will make up for my short comings.  But in the area of small towns they are here by the thousands.  As for officers injuried or killed senselessly I can think of a dozen off the top of my head throughout my career.  You can cuss them, make fun of them but who else would do a thankless job with their only desire was to "protect and serve" .  It certainly isn't the money, long shifts, but there is really a desire to help.  Although there are bad apples in every basket of life there are more good ones than bad.  So my hats off to the ones that try and shame on the ones that make them die.

Amen John!

[sparks]

Sometime around 1965, mom thought I should have piano lessons. About two dollars a week.

Two dollars a week would buy 3 gallons of milk back then.

I never got piano lessons.

Got milk.